Before You Take Your Next Daily Multivitamin, You Need To Read This

Not so fast.

While a lot of conversation arises over how much money is involved in the pharmaceutical industry, it is often overlooked that vitamin and supplements are part of their own $20 billion a year industry.

Though they both deal with incredibly large sums of money, pharmaceutical companies are tightly regulated by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA), while those selling vitamins and other nutrient supplements are not. This means that there is nobody monitoring the safety or efficacy of those products.

It was no great surprise for some, then, when an investigation from New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman found that many herbal supplements had little or none of the ingredient they were claiming to contain. Instead, the pills were rife with fillers the consumer neither wants nor needs. Without a regulatory board to oversee things, this was able to happen quite easily.

But what about vitamins that actually contain the nutrient in question? Do they even work? Are they worth it: